The thing is that the US has a couple characteristics that really don’t favor conscription.
Conscription is useful if you might be invaded, need the ability to raise a lot of basic infantry on short notice. It’s costly, because you require a portion of everyone’s labor for a period of time, but it can be otherwise irreplaceable.
On defense, the US is a very major military power on a continent that has no other major military powers. It is very unlikely to be attacked by a nearby country, at least not the United States of 2024.
To invade the United States, other major powers need to cross the oceans. However, the US is by far the most-militarily-powerful country in the world in the air and at sea; staging for such an attack by land requires crossing oceans and any such attack heavily favors the defender.
The US might be attacked with, say, nuclear ballistic missiles. But that isn’t really the sort of thing that one can stop with more infantry.
What about offense?
Well, the US probably isn’t going to get into any manpower-heavy major land conflicts, and in the past, it has generally favored materiel-heavy fighting. You can’t just grab a random person off the street and put him into a fighter jet very effectively.
In the three conflicts you’re talking about:
Ukraine. The US is very probably not going to get into land warfare here. If the US wants to forcibly tip the balance, it can do so from the air.
Gaza. No point. Israel has things easily in hand. The US can provide support for political reasons, but it’s not necessary for Israel to easily come out on top.
China. The US will not go fight a land war against China; if China and Taiwan fight, the fight will be in the air and at sea. The US isn’t going to try to take Beijing.
No.
The thing is that the US has a couple characteristics that really don’t favor conscription.
Conscription is useful if you might be invaded, need the ability to raise a lot of basic infantry on short notice. It’s costly, because you require a portion of everyone’s labor for a period of time, but it can be otherwise irreplaceable.
On defense, the US is a very major military power on a continent that has no other major military powers. It is very unlikely to be attacked by a nearby country, at least not the United States of 2024.
To invade the United States, other major powers need to cross the oceans. However, the US is by far the most-militarily-powerful country in the world in the air and at sea; staging for such an attack by land requires crossing oceans and any such attack heavily favors the defender.
The US might be attacked with, say, nuclear ballistic missiles. But that isn’t really the sort of thing that one can stop with more infantry.
What about offense?
Well, the US probably isn’t going to get into any manpower-heavy major land conflicts, and in the past, it has generally favored materiel-heavy fighting. You can’t just grab a random person off the street and put him into a fighter jet very effectively.
In the three conflicts you’re talking about:
Ukraine. The US is very probably not going to get into land warfare here. If the US wants to forcibly tip the balance, it can do so from the air.
Gaza. No point. Israel has things easily in hand. The US can provide support for political reasons, but it’s not necessary for Israel to easily come out on top.
China. The US will not go fight a land war against China; if China and Taiwan fight, the fight will be in the air and at sea. The US isn’t going to try to take Beijing.